


Snatcher Is Not A Fan of Bird Movies

by KadeAK (zacixn)



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Human Snatcher, Movie Premiere, Oh the Humanity AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24095551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacixn/pseuds/KadeAK
Summary: Hat Kid convinces a freshly humanised Snatcher to take her to the newest Bird Country movie premiere. Along the way, he realises how fond he's grown of his accidental daughter.Written for doodledrawsthings' "Oh the Humanity" AU on Tumblr.
Relationships: Hat Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 211





	Snatcher Is Not A Fan of Bird Movies

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this consistently for the past five days. I hope you like it.

Snatcher missed Subcon Forest.

Well, okay. He missed more than just Subcon Forest. He missed going outside in general. He missed his powers, his lasers, his soul-eating, his shapeshifting, his everything. Heck, he missed being able to move like he usually would without dislocating a shoulder or cracking his goddamn spine. Being human, quite frankly, sucked, and for more reasons than the Snatcher really wanted to admit! So, at least for now, it was just easier to say he missed Subcon.

Moonjumper was probably doing a fine job keeping the Subconites in line, and it wasn’t like he was worried about his loyalty, but it felt wrong to be sat tucked away in the kid’s spaceship, doing nothing all day but researching time pieces and their properties. If anything, it reminded him of the months he spent away in law school, and the idea of that made his skin crawl with unease.

He sighed as he turned another page of the book laid in front of him, resting his head as he read through yet another unrelated paragraph of indecipherable garbage. These time physics textbooks had the gall of being infinitely more boring than any law textbook he’d ever read, and that was saying something. So far, Snatcher could probably recite with ease the reasons behind the creation of Time Pieces, and probably even lead a whole presentation on the intricacies of Time Piece design, but there was nothing at all related to his own situation. It seemed that not many notable ghosts were getting unwittingly necromancied back into humans.

Shutting the book, Snatcher placed it on a towering stack of books he’d loathingly labelled the Useless Pile of Torment, before moving to get up. Sitting around for so long meant that his body ached like hell, and he made an audible hissing noise as he stretched, hearing his joints pop and crackle in response to the movement. 

Ugh. Having bones again – that was definitely another major downside to being human.

Grumbling under his breath, the ex-spirit moved to leave the bedroom in search of anything to do that didn’t revolve around reading about time for hours on end. Before he reached the door, though, it opened to reveal Hat Kid on the other side of it, looking awfully pleased about something, and holding something behind her back. 

She beamed up at Snatcher with that childish look on her face, and Snatcher almost did a double take, narrowing his eyes at her. She was planning something, wasn’t she? The kid almost always looked like that when she had some sort of idea.

“Snatcher!” she grinned. “I’ve got something for you!”

Raising his eyebrow, Snatcher felt his frown deepen. “What is it now, kid? I’m busy.” At that, Hat Kid looked around him to where his piles of discarded books lay, all closed.

“No you’re not,” she said, with a matter-of-fact tone. “’Sides, you can’t just read all day. That’s lame.” 

The ex-spirit opened his mouth to counter Hat Kid’s argument, only to find he didn’t have any way to do so. As much as it hurt to admit it, she was right. Anything sounded better than reading about time, even if it involved humouring whatever nonsense she wanted to put him through. With a disgruntled grumble, he crossed his arms.  
“What are you holding behind your back?” he instead deflected, trying to peer behind Hat Kid to get a peek. The child simply giggled at his efforts, turning away from his prying eyes with ease.

“Patience!” she spoke, taking a step back. “You’ll see it soon, grouchy-pants.”

“I can’t believe I’m humouring you,” Snatcher sighed, relenting from his attempts to see whatever the child was holding. “Alright, kiddo. What’s got you so… wriggly?”

Hat Kid stuck her tongue out, before straightening back up. “Well, I thought ‘cuz you’re human now, you could do more fun stuff with me!” At that, Snatcher opened his mouth to speak, but the child simply continued going, cutting his protests off. “And there’s a movie premiere soon, for this big cool new collab film that Mr. Conductor and Mr. Grooves made, and I want you to come see it with me!”

There were a few moments of silence as the proposition sank in. Instead of working on getting back to normal… Hat Kid wanted to watch a movie. A movie, of all things. After spending all of his life in Subcon, Snatcher wasn’t even sure he’d enjoy the concept of a movie. It all sounded rather… wasteful.

“What makes you think I’m going to see this “movie” with you?” he settled on, leaning over with a raised eyebrow.

Hat Kid pretended to think for a moment. “Well, we are best friends. You even signed the contract!” she beamed. “Besides, I already got you a suit for it and everything, and I’m not allowed to go alone because of the rules or something, and I’ve been letting you stay on my ship for a week! So… you owe me one.”

“Wh – That contract wasn’t legally binding-“ Snatcher began, before realising how outplayed he was. He wasn’t in the mood to contest this further, and besides – it was a nice excuse to see something that wasn’t the spaceship’s interior for once. “Right. Okay. I get it, kiddo. You got me.” He raised his hands in mock defeat. “I’ll go to the movie.” He eyed Hat Kid curiously. “That is, as long as the suit you got me isn’t awful. I do have some self-respect, you know.”

At that, the girl presented the item she’d been hiding with a flourish, posing with it before she offered it to the ex-spirit. “Ta-da! The best suit ever!” she spoke proudly, extending it out towards Snatcher with outstretched arms.

He hummed skeptically as he looked over the fabric. Despite his initial trepidations, it did actually look well put together, though he’d never worn a modern suit before. It wasn’t exactly worthy of the title ‘best suit ever’, being a simply layered suit with a dark purple-gray theme. Despite its simplicity, though, it was neat, and really Snatcher didn’t mind the idea of wearing it for more than ten minutes.

“It’s not awful,” he admitted, downplaying how impressed he was at the selection as he looked back up at Hat Kid.

The little girl seemed to light up like a firefly at the praise, eyes gleaming. “So you’ll come with me? One hundred percent, no take backs?”

“Sure, kid. Whatever it takes to make you be quiet.”

“Great!” Hat Kid started to back away. “Just get changed into that, the premiere’s in half an hour!”

“Wait, WH--?!” Snatcher began to protest, stumbling forward to reach out to the quickly escaping alien child, but the door shut in his face, leaving him suddenly alone with a suit and a quickly developing headache. He must’ve been really dazed from doing nothing all day to fall for something like that so easily – Hat Kid was getting way too good at playing him for a fool. 

With a resigned sigh, he began to change into the suit.

\---

It only took fifteen minutes to put the suit on in the end. It wasn’t tailored perfectly, obviously, but the fit was nice enough that nobody would probably notice. Snatcher grumbled as he smoothed out the fabric, coming to the realisation that it didn’t look that bad on him. Running his fingers through his hair and scowling at the odd feeling of having human hair again, the ex-spectre proceeded to leave the bedroom, silently regretting every decision he’d made that had led to this moment.

Hat Kid, as expected, was on the other side, waiting. She, too, had changed, probably with her weird fancy alien technology. Surprisingly, instead of wearing a dress like Snatcher would have expected, she was wearing a suit as well, what appeared to be a miniature version of the one she’d handed to Snatcher not long ago. He grumbled when he realised this meant they’d be wearing matching outfits to this cursed event. Hopefully this didn’t mean people would assume they were related.

The girl perked up when she spotted him, giving a thumbs up.  
“I knew the suit would look good on you!” she smiled, basically radiating happiness that she’d made a right decision. Hat Kid looked so excited for this event that Snatcher couldn’t find it in himself to bring the girl’s dreams down, as easy as it would be to crush them utterly. Maybe her enthusiasm for the inevitably boring movie would rub off on him if he kept an open enough mind.

“Yeah, well, when you’ve lived as long as I have, you can make anything work, kiddo.” he opted to brag instead, and Hat Kid rolled her eyes, reaching out to tug on his sleeve.

Snatcher stumbled forward slightly as she led him to her teleportation dock. “C’mon, c’mon! If we get there early, we might be able to see the directors! I’ve told them all about you!” Hat Kid babbled as she tugged, and the ex-spectre could do nothing but follow along. For a nine year old, she really was quite strong when she put her mind to it.

“If this is awful, your soul is mine.” Snatcher warned as he stepped onto the teleporter’s surface. “And I mean it this time.”

Hat Kid stuck her tongue out as she fiddled with the control panel. “You’re gonna love it, I swear. Movies are really really cool. And Mr. Conductor and Mr. Grooves make really fun ones.” With that, she pulled a lever, and the platform began to shudder as the mechanisms whirred into movement. In a split second, the teleporter began to glow, and the duo were gone, spat out at their destination at light speed.

\---

Time must pass differently in space, because the fact that it was evening on Earth’s surface was incredibly disorienting to the Snatcher. Either that, or he hadn’t left Subcon for so long that he’d all but forgotten what any time of day besides midnight was like. Despite the nice looking suit he was wearing, as soon as he caught sight of some of the other patrons – well-dressed birds who probably had nice incomes and large, greedy souls – he felt rather underdressed.

He shouldn’t be nervous, right? He didn’t get nervous – he was as powerful as they came, usually. No matter how many times Snatcher thought that, he couldn’t help but shudder at the pit of uncertainty that had formed in his stupid human stomach.

Fortunately, Hat Kid didn’t seem to notice, her eyes set on the entrance. She tugged Snatcher’s sleeve one more time before letting go, bouncing towards the queue. Deciding not to leave her to get up to mischief alone, Snatcher quickened his pace, keeping up with her as she breezily skirted around the line of impatient looking birds and approached the ticket booth.

“Excuse me, could you two please go to the back of the line to be served?” the attendant – who was what seemed to be an owl – spoke up, looking very, very tired.

Snatcher eyed Hat Kid silently as she pulled out a piece of paper and leaned up to place it on the counter. “I have a special ticket, here.” she spoke, dropping back down to look up at the worker.

They picked it up suspiciously, taking a good minute to read over it with scrutiny. God, this guy was getting on Snatcher’s nerves already. It took a few more seconds for the bird to finally put the paper down again.

“Th-This looks legit, but – I can’t just let you jump the queue, sir.” the bird declared, a fake look of apology on their face. Snatcher took a step forward here, cutting Hat Kid’s inevitably childish response off before it began. He leant on the counter, summoning as much of his intimidation as he could muster.

“Listen, either you let us in now, or you get your managers to look over the paper for you and waste the time of everyone here.” he spoke, smoothly articulated and voice as cold as he could manage it. “Looking at all these patiently waiting birds, I’m sure you don’t want to make them wait longer than anticipated.” It was a thinly veiled threat, sure, but it worked, and Snatcher watched with hidden delight as the bird’s eyes widened at the implications of what they’d said.

“I- okay! Paper’s f-f-fine! You and your daughter can go r-r-right ahead, sir!” 

Thank God he still had some of his scare factor in him. With a curt nod, the ex-spectre moved to enter the building, Hat Kid trailing behind, stunned into momentary silence. It felt good to put others in their place, really.

Before he could enter the building, though, Hat Kid bounced in step with him, eyeing him weirdly. Snatcher opened his mouth to ask what was up with her, but she beat him to speaking.

“…You know that owl just called me your daughter, right?”  
Her words took a good few minutes to sink in.

“Wait, WHAT?!” Snatcher exclaimed, recoiling in shock. Of all the things he’d been expecting to happen today, being mistakenly profiled as some alien girl’s father was nowhere near the top of his list. Hell, even Hat Kid looked perplexed by the mix-up. Acting on instinct, he turned around to go looking for the owl that’d dared to make such an assumption, but Hat Kid held him bag with a tug to the sleeve, shaking her head.

“Let go of me, kiddo – do you really want these birdbrains assuming we’re related?” he protested, but the child rolled her eyes. She didn’t look nearly as concerned about it as she should be, Snatcher thought, narrowing his eyes at the kid.

“It’s not that bad,” she said. “We’re just gonna watch a movie.” She pouted a little. “Besides, if you go back, we won’t get good seats. I wanna be at the back – Cooking Cat told me that’s the best place in a movie building.”

As much as Snatcher wanted to correct the misunderstanding, she was right, and he had told himself to at least try and have a good time. Taking a long, deep sigh, he relented.  
“Alright, fine. I’ll leave it – but this is just because I don’t have my powers right now. Come on, let’s just get those seats.” He wasn’t particularly looking forward to the movie, but right now Snatcher would do anything for the different environment and source of distraction.

Hat Kid seemed to like the sound of that, returning to dragging the ex-spectre by the sleeve of his suit in through the building. The theatre was nicely decorated – probably because this film was by the two leading directors of the bird districts. Unfortunately, Snatcher didn’t have enough time to really admire it, because Hat Kid was making a beeline directly towards the movie’s viewing room. He couldn’t help but notice a surprising amount of random birds pointing and awwing at the sight of the cute little nine year old girl dragging her guardian with such enthusiasm. It was – well, it left a weird feeling in Snatcher’s stomach, being seen as this kid’s guardian at all, but it’s not like he could do anything about it, because as soon as he started to think on the topic, they’d arrived at the actual viewing.

“You have to be super quiet,” Hat Kid spoke as her pace slowed down, oblivious to the attention she’d just been drawing. “People get mad if you talk in these places, I think.”

Snatcher let out a breath of relief as he caught up – his human body didn’t have the stamina he was used to. “Yeah, I know how theatres work, kiddo.” She beamed at that.

“Good!” she grinned, loosening her grip on his sleeve as they walked in side by side. “I’ve never watched a film before, so I’m a bit nervous.” 

The ex-spectre eyed her suspiciously. “I thought you starred in four films.”

“Yeahhhh, but I didn’t watch them, so it doesn’t count.” 

“Mmmhmmm. Got it.”

The theatre itself was not as large as Snatcher had been expecting, to be honest. His last experiences with shows had been several centuries ago, though, so maybe society had just progressed in technology while he was dead. That wouldn’t surprise him – he was still trying to wrap his mind around the phone his minions had stolen for him last month.

Wordlessly, they made their way to the back row and took a seat. It was blessedly empty so far, so Snatcher slid in first, letting himself sink into one of the central seats. He was tired already – this was a lot to be doing in just a half hour’s pre-warning. Hat Kid sat down next to him, just tall enough to see over the seats comfortably, surprisingly. She clearly wasn’t tired, in her own world of energy as she shuffled around and swung her legs. It was kind of endearing how excited she was for this.

She didn’t seem interested in conversation anymore for once, focused entirely on the theatre’s screen as it played some sort of warm-up content. That was fine with Snatcher, really, and the ex-spectre sighed as he leaned back, watching the theatre fill up with a broad variety of birds. As much as he would normally be incredibly annoyed by such a scenario, with all these stuck-up adults crowding around him, Snatcher didn’t feel all too bothered by the fact he’d been roped into this situation by Hat Kid. Hell, he was somewhat pleased he got to take her to such an event. It’d been so long since he’d had any sort of positive influence in someone’s life – besides his Subconites, of course, but they weren’t ‘alive’, so they didn’t count.

He’d probably never say this out loud, but he was sort of proud of the kid. She had bested him in a fight, after all, and proceeded to systematically complete every one of his most dangerous contracts. It was impressive, to say the least. As frustrating as it was to be defeated at all, even he couldn’t deny he was growing mildly fond of this little alien girl. She reminded him of times long passed, back when he was still an idiot in love, when he’d really, desperately wanted a child. 

It was almost funny how things had played out. Despite everything, Snatcher found he couldn’t complain. Had the circumstances been different, well, he doubted he’d ever have had this child stumble into his life. It might’ve taken a few hundred years, and hell, he might be stuck in a human’s body, but the ex-spectre was finally somewhat content with his circumstances.

…Huh. That was a weird feeling. Snatcher placed a hand on his chest curiously. It’d been so long since he’d been human, he’d almost forgotten how it felt to have emotions in their purest form. Sure, he’d felt things as a ghost, but never to this degree. What even was he feeling right now, as he looked down on this child he was so proud of?  
Appreciation? Warmth? Fatherhood--?

A sharp prod in his side from Hat Kid snapped Snatcher out of his disgustingly sentimental thoughts as he realised how close he’d come to falling asleep in his seat. The film seemed to be starting – somehow, the whole theatre had become packed in the few minutes he’d spent lost in his mind. Giving a thumbs up to Hat Kid, he turned his attention to the movie screen, and prepared himself for the most boring experience of his entire lifetime.

\---

The film, or what Snatcher caught of it, wasn’t terrible. He could faintly hear Hat Kid besides him, gasping at the scenes of action and clapping at the more rhythm-based scenes. Had he been more alert, maybe he would have lasted through the entire film without dozing off.

As it turns out, he was pretty exhausted from his day of reading. Perhaps Snatcher needed to fix his sleep schedule – being human again was rougher than he could ever have anticipated.  
He woke up with a start to the sounds of bird folk leaving the theatre, chattering about how great the film had been. Hat Kid was stood in her seat, leaning over the ex-spectre almost judgingly. He’d kind of crumpled in on himself in his sleep, head leant back and resting against his shoulder limply. It was probably comfortable when he fell asleep, but now, a persistent ache was resounding through his mortal container. 

“Hey, sleepyhead.” Hat Kid spoke, poking him again. Snatcher made a grumbling noise in protest, reaching up to bat her little finger away. He sat up in his seat and stretched, a loud yawn escaping him as he fought the aftermath of sleep away. His suit was probably a wrinkled mess by now, but somehow, he found himself not caring.

“You slept through like, the whole movie.” Hat Kid said, hopping off her chair once the row had cleared. “It was really good, too.”

Standing up and brushing himself off, the ex-spectre raised his eyebrow at the child. “I’m sure it was great.” he spoke, tone sarcastic. Hat Kid didn’t seem to pick up on his sarcasm, though, and nodded, smile widening.

“There were cowboys in space, and the main character had a musical gun, and both Mr. Conductor and Mr. Grooves were in it,” she explained as the two started to head out, a skip in her step. How on earth was she still full of energy? Snatcher’s impromptu sleep seemed to have drained him of energy rather than given him more, and yet this child was still basically bouncing off the walls with excitement.

“I’m gonna draw the main characters when we get back,” she chirped, before suddenly yawning. Ah, so she was tired, too. Not even weird rabid alien children were exempt from exhaustion, then. She must’ve been trying to keep up her enthusiasm through her tiredness, because now she was slumping a little, her pace slowing. At this rate, they might not make it out of the viewing room, let alone the theatre.

“C’mon, kid. Let me carry you back.” Snatcher spoke. It wasn’t a long walk, anyway – they just needed to get out of sight of the theatre folk to teleport back home. Plus, Hat Kid looked to be thrilled by the idea of a genuine Snatcher piggy-back ride. He didn’t even have to lower himself that far for the girl to attach herself to his back, crawling into a comfortable position and wrapping her arms loosely around his neck. Even when tired, she was scarily athletic.

“Thanks, dad,” she mumbled into the fabric of his suit. Dad… as much as Snatcher ought to feel disgusted by the idea of being called Dad, he wasn’t. It was probably just a slip-up from a tired child, anyway, he decided, pushing his conflicted feelings about fathership out of his mind to focus on getting home.

Standing up straight, the ex-spectre let his cargo get comfy before heading out into the theatre’s reception. The ticket bird was there, relaxing a little as their main shift had ended and passing out farewells to the leaving patrons. They waved a feathered hand to Snatcher as he passed by.

“Good night, sir! I hope you and your daughter have a safe trip home!”  
There it was again – the casual usage of familial terms. Hat Kid didn’t seem to mind it, waving tiredly at the friendly bird, and Snatcher followed suit to avoid his further uninvited judgment. Pushing through the entrance to the theatre, he let out a sigh as the cold night wind touched his skin. 

Snatcher walked a few feet away before he tapped Hat Kid’s arm gently.  
“C’mon, kid. Activate that transporter thing of yours. You need to get to bed.”  
…Oh, dear. He sounded just like some kind of doting father. What a predicament.

Hat Kid made some sleepy noises, fumbling with something on her wrist. She mumbled something along the lines of ‘boop’, presumably activating the transport, and with a quick flash of light, they were back aboard the ship.

Ah, the ship. Before last week, Snatcher would never have thought he’d be relieved to be back aboard it, but here he was. Allowing himself to slouch a bit, he noticed with a bit of disappointment that Cooking Cat seemed to be up and about, watching the duo with intrigue. He’d probably have to convince her later that no, he was not adopting the child, and no, he was not getting soft because he was a human again.

For now, though, all he did was place his finger to his mouth in a shushing gesture, and she nodded in understanding, heading back into the kitchen.

The journey to Hat Kid’s bedroom was considerably more difficult with a child clung to his back like a little monkey. The tunnels, which were already rather small, became unbearably cramped – it was a miracle that the kid wasn’t disturbed by any head-knocking on the unfortunately low ceiling.

She’d have to sleep in her suit, at least for now, Snatcher thought. Maybe they’d be able to salvage it later – or maybe it wouldn’t be affected, knowing how weird her wardrobe acted. Approaching Hat Kid’s bed, the ex-spectre gently moved to lay her down in it, going the extra mile and tucking her in. She was basically asleep already, eyes shut and mouth drawn wide in a smile. The peaceful sight was almost enough to make Snatcher’s barely developed heart grow three sizes in compassion.

For now, he backed away, moving to leave the bedroom. She’d had enough excitement today, and right now, all Snatcher wanted to do was drink several jars of coffee and contemplate how exactly he accidentally adopted a space daughter so fast.

…For what it was worth, humanity didn’t seem so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> If I got details wrong about theatres... don't sue me. I haven't been to watch a movie in two years.  
> Go check out my Tumblr if you hadn't already - it's @zacixn! I've posted some art of one of the lines of this fic.


End file.
